Kimberly-Clark CEO got $10.6 million last year, up 10.7 percent

DAVID KOENIG

Published 6:00 pm, Monday, March 3, 2008

AP Business Writer

Kimberly-Clark Corp. Chief Executive Thomas J. Falk received compensation that the company valued at $10.6 million for 2007, when the maker of Huggies diapers and Kleenex tissues raised profits 21 percent despite higher costs for pulp and energy.

The compensation marked a 10.7 percent increase over Falk's package in 2006, largely due to a bigger bonus in 2007.

Falk, 49, earned a 2007 salary of $1.2 million, and received a performance-based bonus of $2.5 million, according to Kimberly-Clark's proxy statement filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also received $143,406 in other compensation, including $45,320 in personal travel on corporate aircraft, and $56,120 in security services.

However, the bulk of Falk's compensation came from stock awards and options that the company valued at nearly $6.8 million on the date they were issued in April.

The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonus, incentives, perquisites, above-market returns on deferred compensation, and the company estimates of the value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The figures don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements.

Last year, Kimberly-Clark earned $1.82 billion on sales of $18.27 billion, up from a 2006 profit of $1.50 billion on $16.75 billion in sales.

However, Kimberly-Clark's results weakened in the fourth quarter, as profit fell 5.5 percent from a year earlier. The company grappled with higher-than-expected costs for paper pulp and energy, and executives said cost pressures will remain a challenge in 2008. They responded by raising prices 4 percent to 7 percent this month on diapers, training pants, bathroom tissues and paper towels.

Falk has been CEO since 2002 and added the title of chairman a year later. He previously led the company's tissue business.

Kimberly-Clark also said in the filing that its annual shareholder meeting would be held April 17 in Irving.

Investors will elect directors and vote on five shareholder resolutions, including one filed on behalf of New York City pension funds urging the company to follow an international group's standards on human rights in foreign countries where it operates. Similar proposals have been defeated three years in a row.